Most Buzzed About Shows This Week

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Residents of Manhattan, Kings, Queens, Bronx and Richmond counties (and hell, Hudson, Nassau and Westchester too,) next week is a veritable buzz graveyard in the city's live music venues, as most bands (and myself) will be headed down to sunny Austin, Texas for a little old music festival called SXSW. I recommend all residents fill their bathtubs with water, buy extra canned goods and stock up on buzzed shows this week to weather next week's storm of nothingness.

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NYC Most Buzzed About Shows

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One need not look any further than supporting acts to gauge the direction that Brooklyn's favorite punk eclectics The Men intend to take with each release. New Moon, the band's third full-length, is out today via Sacred Bones (you'd never know by the album art) and they're hyping its release with a sold out show at Bowery Ballroom on Thursday with a pair of incredible country-fried punk bands, Nude Beach and the ever-buzzed stoned and starving bros from Ridgewood (via Austin), Parquet Courts. The record solidifies The Men as one of the boroughs most dependable buzzbands, having ridden their punk progression from intense, dingy DIY shows with angular hardcore acts like Russian Circles to MOST BUZZED gold with a more Americana-inspired sound.

An early candidate for album of the year is Youth Lagoon's Wondrous Bughouse, which expands the Boise, Idaho singer-songwriter's emotionally affecting and warm, but sparsely arranged sonic template to more ornate and quite frankly, BIGGER arrangements. It's the music of an impossibly talented young-songwriter operating at the peak of his devices. And you can see him tomorrow night at Bowery Ballroom.

Solange Knowles may be the MVP of this column thus far, as she appears on our buzz-o-meter for the third time in a calendar month for another enchanting live set, this time at MoMA tomorrow night.

The absolute craziest party this week, bar-none, will be the shitshow of an event 285 Kent has booked for tomorrow night, headlined by the Zeus of partying, Andrew WK. The diverse bill features a much-anticipated performance from indie pop vibers DOM, a sick hip-hop set by one of the best and most innovative emcees in the game today, Cities Aviv, post-illuminati electro beats from Dickpic (DJ Dog Dick and Pictureplane, recipients of the most absurd genre description for the week) and sets by a pair of top-flight electro acts, Blue Hawaii and Cool Serbia.

It's only been three years since we've had a proper release from The Thermals, but it seems like a lifetime. The Portland trio seems right at home on their new label, Saddle Creek Records, which will release their previous three records and a brand new one, called Desperate Ground in April. They seem to be paying their dues on the scene again, so you should reap the benefits of seeing this top-flight indie act on two smaller stages this week; at 285 Kent on Thursday night (with Habibi) and Maxwell's on Saturday night (with TEEN.)

Indians is the project of Copenhagen's Søren Løkke Juul which marries minimal fuzzy synth with his soft falsetto. He's coming off a 2012 spent on big stages with Beirut, Perfume Genius and Lower Dens, and you'll have a chance to see him in an intimate setting on Thursday Night when he headlines Mercury Lounge with Night Beds.

Well, Williamsburg finally got its big dance club. The door is expensive, and it seems to attract a, well, different crowd than what I'm used to seeing in North Brooklyn, but Thursday night is an excellent chance to check out Wythe Avenue's new hotspot, with some sick electro acts; Rustie, Shlohmo, Jackmaster, Oneman and D33J.